Creating Space to Repower

 

The winds of November came calling last week.  Cold, driving rain and high winds kept us inside after supper.  We sat by the fire, reading, chatting and feeling cozy. Until, the lights began to flicker on and off a few times before staying off totally.  So, we found the flashlight and my partner lit candles.  We put a pot of water on the gas stove that heats the houses so we could have warm water in the morning.  And then we enjoyed the candlelight and the fire.  My partner who has better eyes than me, read out loud from a book by the light of a flashlight.  I thought about the fact that humans have only had electricity for a hundred years or so, a mere blip, and yet we are so dependent on it.

After about an hour or so, the lights came back on.  We moved around the house only to discover that not all of the lights had come back on.  Only a few circuits were working.  We were not at full power, so my partner figured that something had happened outside.  A cursory circumnavigation of the house revealed nothing.  So, we set up power cords to keep the fridge running and for the modem so we could stream some shows all the while wondering what the problem actually was.

The next morning, the situation hadn’t changed.  We brainstormed ideas.  My big idea was to call an electrician.  My partner phoned a friend who used to work for Hydro but he had to leave a message.  I had to go to the COVID testing centre to get my bi-weekly test in order to visit my father in a long term care facility.  They had a brand new system at the testing centre and the health care worker was just learning it.  I seem to get the same worker every time I go and so we worked our way through the new system with some laughs and jokes.

After that, I went to visit my father.  There is a new system in place at his nursing home and I now have to wear full PPE to visit him.  I had to do my declarations of a negative test, hand sanitizing, gown donning, choosing the eye shield I liked the best and then I watched 3 training videos on PPE use and hand washing.  Finally, I was led to my father’s room by a staff member so I didn’t have to touch anything.  I hadn’t been to my father’s room since the middle of March.  One staff member recognized me and asked how I was doing.  I had been told not to speak to staff members in a loud voice so I mumbled an answer from behind my mask.  Then, I had to explain to my 93 year old father why I was wearing a mask and tell him about the pandemic.  Again.  I played some classical music on my iPod for him and the short visit was over before I knew it.  He seemed to enjoy the visit. He even sang along with the Bach (St. Matthew’s Passion) that I played for him.   If visits go poorly, I am relieved to go but if they are good then I feel sad leaving.  It seems the things we like and dislike are inseparable these days.

I got home but couldn’t get into the driveway because a big Hydro truck with a bucket was in the driveway.  Three workers, one up high in the bucket, were cutting and removing parts of a Black Locust tree on the neighbour’s lawn.  The hydro line for our house goes right through the middle of the tree.  Funny, how I had never noticed this before.  It turns out that as the tree was blowing in the high wind, it wore a hole in the protective coating on the wire which led to arcing.  Had we looked at it last night, we would have seen this.  That is why we weren’t at full power.  The workers fixed the wire, cut away the offending branches and like magic, the power in our house went back to normal.

After lunch, we went for a walk in the forest to let the trees and river sooth my rattled nerves brought on by too much change.  Quite a number of trees had come down in the wind.  Old, dead elms lay where they had fallen, branches splintered and tossed.  One old Poplar had taken a young oak sapling down with it on its final descent. 

The Poplar trunk which is approx. 8" in diameter
broke the Oak sapling on its way down and blocked the trail.

Two days earlier, we had taken an axe, a saw and a pickaroon to the forest to clear the trail of fallen tree trunks so that we can safely ski there once the snow comes. We felt quite happy with our work.  But, now there are more to take care of.  As I figured out how to get over or under the big Poplar, it felt like navigating the system to get to my father.  I could say, it is too hard, the path is blocked and give up.  But, that is not the way in a forest.

The Black Cherry trunk that we cut away from the trail earlier.

The next day would have been my mother’s 92^nd birthday if she was still alive.  She has been gone over 9 years now.  I have a ritual of eating fish and chips on her birthday since that was her comfort food.  It is a good way to celebrate her life and it is delicious as well.  I had been trying to figure out earlier how we were going to do that without a functioning stove.  Usually we go out to a fish and chip shop to eat but during this pandemic, I have switched to frozen fish and chips from the grocery store.  I had been picturing warming them up on the BBQ before the power problem had been solved.  And how luxurious it felt to use the oven once again.

The image of a wire rubbing against a tree branch until it leaked power stayed with me.  Adjusting to constant change in COVID procedures takes a lot of my energy and I often feel drained afterwards.  The hydro men had cut away the offending branches and provided a safe space for the wire to traverse the yard to the house.  I decided to nurture myself for the rest of the afternoon, to give myself space so that my energy could build up again.  

I made a cup of tea in my mother’s honour before walking in the woods.  The White Pines had shed small branches and I picked one up and brought the soft green needles to my nose.  The smell of pine flooded my olfactory nerves.  The smell was comforting.  Perhaps, it smelled like the Christmas trees of the past.  Perhaps, it smelled like camping in pine forests.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter.  The resin comforted me and I brought the branch home.  A small Red Pine branch appeared on the trail at the end of my walk and I breathed it in as well.  Home.  That was it.  It smelled like Home.  

My father is safely locked away in his protective nursing home, my mother is in her elsewhere home, my children are spread across the country in their homes.  And my home now has full power.  The Black Locust has taught me about creating space to nurture myself into full power and the pine trees have signaled home.  The idea of going home is what comes to me when I feel overloaded.  So home is a place where I have the space to recover, fill up, repower.  My teachers, the trees, reminded me of this.  And I took their advice to heart.